Recently, electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles that travel with electric energy instead of fuel or in addition to fuel have been attracting attention in order to reduce carbon dioxide exhausted from automobiles to prevent global warming. Among hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles have been produced that are configured such that an installed battery can be charged with electric energy from an outside of the vehicle.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-62638 (JP 2007-62638 A) (Patent Document 1) discloses a hybrid vehicle in which the battery can be charged from the outside of the vehicle and that can be expected to reduce a power cost.